Quote:
Originally Posted by NFuego20
Lifetime (approximately 5 years of online play over three sites) I've made a bit over 6 figures. And I consider myself average at best for a regular player. I have plenty of friends who play many more hands and many more tables, enough to play close to a million hands a year who earn that just about each year. If you play enough hands you'll see just about everything, and if you play tournaments you'll also see a lot more of it simply because the blinds force the action and people get all in against each other a lot more often
...........
.
Thank you NFuego,
Your words about plenty of friends who make about six figure a year make me feel easier. The rest of your post about bad beats, etc., is not for me. I never paid too much attention to bad beats, even if they went in a terrible streaks, like 20 times in a row. That not only can, but must happen in a long run. Variance, you know...
Like you, I've been playing online poker for about 5 years and made slightly more then $200k overall. Unfortunately, most of those winnings fall on the first 2 years, when I even didn't use rake back, like now. That's why I think I should win more now.
I agree, average level of online players went up dramatically since then. But I learned poker too. My poker library consists of about 20 books. I spent hundreds hours analyzing my hand histories. I'm not near that rookie who I was 4-5 years ago. Yet winning rate goes only down.
Well, maybe I am on a long, long losing streak. After all, statistically speaking, somebody must suffer terrible downswings. Also, well may be, that I am not so fast leaner as others and not so good at poker to win more. It hurts my self-esteem but I can live with it.
Non-rigtards, sorry, but I cannot throw away possibility of rigging. Among piles of garbage about bad beats and so at "rigged" threads I've found some nuggets of interesting information. There are three things that bother me a lot
1. By manipulating their games poker sites could gain awfull amount of money comparing to their legitimate earnings. My estimate shows that the ratio may be up to 10 times. If I were them, I woldn't miss this opportunity. At least, it would worth trying.
2. AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet scandals showed that even caught redhanded poker sites can easily get away. After the scandals thay are stll in busines and doing well.
I know, that was a former high rank emploee who cheated at AbsolutePoker. But he wasn't prosecuted, convicted and put in jail as it would definetely happen if poker sites were regulated by reputable authorities, like Canada, England, Australia or others big eastern countries where online poker is legal. Then I can suppose that poker sites themselves will not have to stand any kind of trial in court even if rigging would be proved somehow.
3. Despite long-lasting debates about rigging, poker sties did not give any statistical evidence of their legitimacy yet. Unlike you or me, regular players, they can do that. They have access to all hand histories. Full hand histories, including hole cards of all players. They have financial information about everybody, so they can compare statistical performance of winning players vs. losing. They have resources to develop software and test that prove random cards distribution. They can hire independent audit company with assignment not only to test their RNG, which proves nothing, but check their real live hands history, say, every year. For unknown to me reason, they do not do that, thas making thousand, or hundred of thousand, players to doubt. I know, some rigtards will question audit company independency, would still whine about bad beats. But majority, I believe, will take it right. Indeed, I didn't heard much about rigging in real life poker.
I could agree, that my logic may be faulty. Maybe, there are strong reasons for poker sites to act this way and not another. So far, I don't understand why.
That's why I am happy to hear from you, NFuego, that you personaly know many people who wins relatively big onlin. For me, this is a kind of proof. Wold be nice to have some more of proof, but still that's good.
Regards.